(Bloomberg) -- UK police have arrested a British teenager for his alleged part in a hacking group that has carried out a series of ransomware attacks, including one that disrupted casinos and hotels at MGM Resorts International last year.
Officers took the 17-year-old into custody on Thursday on suspicion of blackmail and violating the Computer Misuse Act violations, the West Midlands Police said in a statement Friday. He was subsequently released on bail, police said. Investigators recovered digital devices and other evidence from the teenager’s home in the community of Walsall, and it is being examined as part of an ongoing international probe involving the FBI, according to the statement.
Police didn’t identify the teen by name, and it wasn’t immediately clear if he has an attorney who could speak on this behalf. The West Midlands Police didn’t provide further detail on the allegations against the teenager, nor did they respond to requests seeking more information.
The arrest comes less than a year after a notorious hacking group, sometimes called Scattered Spider, breached MGM Resorts International Inc. by tricking workers at the company’s help desk. The September attack inconvenienced hotel guests at the MGM Grand along the Las Vegas strip, took down company websites and knocked out slot machines.
The hackers — who are suspected in attacks on dozens of other companies, including Caesars Entertainment Inc. and Clorox Co. — demanded that MGM pay a ransom.
MGM said it was proud to have supported the arrest. “By voluntarily shutting down our systems, refusing to pay a ransom and working with law enforcement on their investigation and response, the message to criminals was clear: it’s not worth it,” the company said in the statement from the West Midlands Police.
Bryan Vorndran, assistant director of FBI’s cyber division, said in the statement that the agency will “continue to relentlessly pursue malicious actors who target American companies, no matter where they may be located or how sophisticated their techniques are.”
The teenager has been on law enforcement’s radar for “years” and is a core member of the Starfraud Telegram channel, according to a person familiar with the matter, who requested anonymity to discuss confidential matters. Starfraud is another name for the Scattered Spider group, according to the US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency.
Soon after the attack on MGM, the US Federal Trade Commission launched an investigation into how the company dealt with a cybersecurity attack. The company in turn sued to stop the probe, arguing that it deprives MGM of its fundamental due process rights and that FTC Chair Lina Khan should recuse herself from the case because she was visiting MGM Grand during the attack.
After receiving a report about the ransomware attack in September, FBI agents sat in with MGM’s lawyers and IT team to watch the incident unfold, and the company has been working with the investigators up until the point of arrest, according to a person familiar with the incident said. The person requested that their name not be used to discuss sensitive matters.
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